Roadways has been manufacturing asphalt and applying bituminous road surfacing to Tasmanian roads since 1969 and recently grew the business with the acquisition of Tasmania’s largest road marking company, Zaganite Specialised Coatings Pty Ltd in 2003.

The need to eliminate reliance on spreadsheets to run the business and move to an integrated and consistent job cost process drove Roadways to Greentree.

The seal of approval was given to Financials, Job Cost, Payroll, Inventory and Transaction Analysis which were all recently deployed. These modules provide not a by-pass, but a seamlessly integrated solution, supplying Roadways with all the right answers to questions. Roadways are now able exploit the level ground and focus their expertise on the core business of road surfacing.

Phil Sidney, CEO at Roadways says that they really needed an integrated system with a substantial job costing capability that would effectively replace the numerous Excel spreadsheets the business had been running on for many years. Since a core business activity was job costing, Phil says they were very impressed with the fact that a customer quote can be easily converted into a job from within Greentree’s CRM module.

CRM enables quotes to easily convert into a job – no re-keying of data
This means you can create a complete audit trail of a quote from initiation to completion with flags to follow-up at various times during the process. Previously, quotes were created in a spreadsheet so there was no system prompt at various milestones and if a quote was accepted, the data needed to be re-keyed into the old system. If a quote wasn’t accepted no one really knew why. Phil says that being able to track customer transactions from CRM is “immensely helpful.”

Greentree’s modular solution a real stand-out
The seamless integration between Greentree’s modules means that re-keying quote data is a task of the past since there is only one single entry of data required which can be ‘viewed’ from anywhere within the system. It also means that you only need to purchase the modules you need and whilst Phil concedes Roadways aren’t using Greentree to anywhere near its potential he says they’re “improving and realising its immense capability everyday.”

Flexible reporting efficiently tracks and reports machine usage
Roadways are Tasmania’s only licensed operator of the Sharpe’s Multipaver asphalt paving system and have many other specialised machines used for various roading projects. The tracking of hours of usage and scheduling of maintenance of each machine is crucial since machine failure can cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars in down-time and Phil says Greentree’s reporting has been super-important.

“Greentree’s reporting capability now fully informs management and this translates into better decision making when it comes to quoting and estimating future jobs – previously, we weren’t getting the full picture about costs or machine hours.”

Previously, machine usage was tracked manually in a spreadsheet but this is now automatically tracked via several of Greentree’s integrated modules. Most importantly is the tracking and reporting of labour and materials against a customer’s job which was a process predisposed to error and omission of hidden and forgotten costs. Now, every cost associated with a job is entered into the system once and updated in all relevant reporting systems, which means all costs are accurately reflected in the actual job cost. Roadways are thus able to fully optimise the use and application of materials used to surface roads and apply line markings.

Taking the ‘long road’ to the future
The local Greentree business partner implemented and customised Greentree to meet Roadway’s specific needs and Phil says “they were very supportive.” As far as he’s concerned, Greentree has met the company’s need for a business management system with a strong job costing capability and his view is that Greentree is a progressive company that Roadways will grow with well into the future.

For more information

www.greentree.com/customers/profiles/roadways.cfm

Graham Hill
Greentree International
Ph: 0800 313 313
Fax: 09 366 3889
graham.hill@greentree.com
www.greentree.com

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